 There has been a lot of talk over the last week or so about word processors Now this is an interesting topic that the Linux youtuber community has seemed to have gotten into and I thought I'd throw my two cents into it But not in the way you might expect I'm not going to get into whether or not word processors are evil. I Don't think that they are now as Microsoft evil that could be argued word processors not so much What I am going to talk about is whether or not Linux has a good word processor and the answer to that is no We can talk until we're blue in the face about whether or not Microsoft is bad or whether or not you should use Microsoft office We could just go over and over and over and over that it doesn't matter because Offices and on Linux that is not an argument that we need to have because it's simply quite difficult to get office I've been running on Linux and the vast majority of people who use Linux don't use office anymore. They use something like LibreOffice So that's where I'm going to focus my attention today is on LibreOffice What the hell is going on with LibreOffice? It's looked exactly the same for the last 20 years. It's been The same since they branched off from what is open office or whatever it's called It's looked exactly the same and if you can name me five features that LibreOffice has added in the last Five years, I'll give you a heart in the comments But don't look it up because I'm sure there have been features that they've added But I don't think anybody can name them off the top of their heads I know I can't and that's kind of the point it feels like LibreOffice is standing still and Well, I can't say that there's been a ton of innovation in terms of word processing and spreadsheets and stuff from Microsoft You don't get the feeling that they're standing still though. They add new things all the time whether they're needed or not they revamp the UI every once in a while to make it feel fresh It feels like they're working on it even if they work badly on it they still feels like they're working on it LibreOffice feels stale and That's a big problem because if you want to attract new users you actually have to keep up with the pack leader and That's something that LibreOffice Just doesn't do So there are a few things that I'm talking about specifically here. The first one is collaboration now. There are open source Office suites that allow you to collaborate with other people very easily None of them have very good representation in terms of native software they're almost all universally web applications and That's okay. Those applications are competing with Google Docs and things like that and they have their place But in terms of native applications Collaboration has fallen by the wayside now Microsoft hasn't done a very good job of doing collaboration in their native applications either But this is one place where LibreOffice could go through and use open source tools to Enable collaboration in their native software and it would be something that nobody else really has Believe it not not everybody wants to have to open up their browser to do their work I know I hate it when I have to open up a Google Doc because I always have to have a Google Doc Open up next to a YouTube's you know tab and everybody knows which of those is gonna get my attention I'd rather have just a standalone application allows me to do my collaboration with other people and right now That doesn't exist one of the oddest places that we could talk about Office software is on mobile because not a lot of people really utilize office software on their mobile phones They're when and when they do they do so so that they can do Miniscule edits or just take a look at a document or whatever. They're not doing advanced Spreadsheeting on their mobile phones. That's just not something that people do But that's not something that you can really do With LibreOffice because LibreOffice does not have an office suite on mobile now. I know there are open source Applications on Android that allow you to edit the documents that you create in LibreOffice I know those things exist, but I'm specifically talking about LibreOffice They don't have a version for mobile and whether or not that's a good or bad thing can be argued because maybe they don't need to focus their Energy on creating mobile service or mobile applications Simply because very few people would actually use them But it is an area where they're lacking in comparison to almost every other Major office suite Google has them Microsoft has them LibreOffice does not have them Another place where LibreOffice is kind of lacking is the integration with third-party tools specifically next cloud and services like next cloud if you open up a Microsoft Office document you get bombarded with Options of saving your stuff to the cloud. That's not something that we really want on LibreOffice I don't particularly want to get bombarded with a Proprietary software But I would like the option of being able to automatically sync my documents to something like next cloud Without actually having to just to save them to a like a next-cloud drive or something Like I know this is a work run that you can do and it's not as if it's a big deal Built-in options for next cloud would be highly appreciated and would maybe enable things like collaboration to actually exist in their native software The last thing I want to talk about at least in terms of them not moving forward is their UI their UI has basically Stayed the same for a long time. I mentioned it before It's basically looked the same since the beginning of time now They do have other options in terms of layout in terms of they have like a ribbon view They have a single bar view those things are available But by default it looks the same as it always has and that's not I mean that's okay I mean a lot of Linux software stays static in terms of UI for a long time and doesn't really bother people and the fact That you can change it is good I just feel like they're very much not focused on actually improving the User interface because the user interface looks like Microsoft Office Outside of the ribbon, you know, so I think that they are very much aware that people are comfortable with this look and they're Not willing to rock that boat and that's a little sad because as someone who enjoys change I would like to see them at least Innovate a little bit in terms of not making their software look exactly like all the other office software out there but Again, I know a lot of people are opposed to changing. That's fine. I would like the option of Making the UI a little bit more to my taste and I would also like them to add features to the UI that Make it easier to write. So a distraction free writing is a huge area that Is ignored by a lot of other huge word processors That's something that could easily be integrated into LibreOffice Writer and It's not I mean you can do workarounds and obviously get rid of a lot of the distractions But in terms of actually a distraction free writing mode, it doesn't exist so Those sorts of UI improvements Would be very welcome and it would show Even if they made some effort in these areas It would show that they're at least working on it instead of just kind of maintaining the status quo So my final argument for this video is that there's nothing that makes LibreOffice feel special, you know I'm not necessarily arguing that Microsoft Office feel special but Microsoft Office is a tool that people are pretty much forced to use nobody says ooh I'm yay. I'm gonna have to use Microsoft Office. That's not something that anybody's ever said ever and most people probably do dread it but Most people would argue that at least those of us who aren't Foss advocates most people would argue that Microsoft Office is a highly featured Office suite that gives them the tools to do what they need to do Is that something that LibreOffice also does? Sure But there are features in Microsoft Word that make it feel special that make it feel like it is something that Has been paid attention to by Microsoft over the years their integration with with One cloud or whatever it's called They even have integration with box and dropbox and all that kind of stuff All that stuff is built in and all that stuff is fairly recent and has been added, right? They're online tools things that LibreOffice doesn't have Things like their online versions of their own software that allow you to do collaboration That stuff has all been added within the last five or six years And this is what I'm talking about with Microsoft Office. It feels like they're moving forward It feels like they're they have a group of people who are actually very interested in improving the product Now again, I don't necessarily agree that you should have to sign into your Microsoft account in order to use your word processor But you can't deny that Microsoft Office and the Microsoft team have at least put some effort into Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and all those things For LibreOffice It just doesn't feel like they've gone through and put much effort into it And that's where I'm really disappointed because while I don't need a ton of awesome features I mean I've listed several here today that they could work on I'd be happy with one of them. I don't need all of them Uh, I don't really need any of them But I would like to see That some kind of effort that would make it seem like they're actually interested in their product rather than their very laxadaisical update schedule that you know Makes it feel like they're just trying to stay the same as they always have them So that is it for this video if you like LibreOffice and want to defend it for a little while you can do so in the comments I'll be happy to debate with you in the comments below If you also believe that LibreOffice has kind of been standing still for the last decade I'd also like to hear from you. You can follow me on twitter at the linuxcast You can follow me on facebook at the linuxcast and you can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linuxcast Before I go I'd like to take a moment to thank our current patrons Devon, Marcus, Meglund, Donnie, Sven, East Coast, Webb, Merrick, Camp Mitchell. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time